Within the last 6 months, there has been a significant positive shift in how business decisions are made and communicated. For the first time in 4 years here I'm seeing us morph from the highly creative, chaotic think-tank to something more focused. I think people who love "fly by the seat of your pants" environments will find us becoming too structured, while those from highly structured environments will either find us refreshingly flexible or frustratingly lacking in process. There is lots of room for creativity, but it is good to remember that there are many highly creative and talented people here, so not everybody's brilliant idea/project will be the one that goes to market. I find the compensation packet about right for a company at our stage of growth, I'd like more predictability on the value for my equity options, but that remains to be seen. No matter where we are in which market, I love that we push the envelope that others have to catch up to - headsets, blue-tooth speakers, activity trackers. So although others pass us by in volume, I don't think they'd be as good as they are if we hadn't set the bar so high to begin with. ...and you just cannot argue with the fact our designs are something you want to live with not just objects that do things. I love that we are routinely pushing out software and firmware upgrades to our customers rather than making them buy something new or be out-of-date. We are encouraged to contribute to a positive culture by jumping in on ad-hoc committees and teams, whether it's taking action steps from the annual survey or scheduling regular social gatherings (Beers On The Roof, Friday Wins, etc.)

Cons

Its tough on the ego to go from market leader to an "also ran" in a short period of time, and it was, until recently, been tough financially and stressful with vendors waiting for payments, but I'm glad the company always made payroll their #1 priority during that period. I know some people feel disadvantaged to work at the non SF locations, that they feel "disconnected" from the mother ship. Since I am in SF, that is not a concern of mine, (frankly I always get more work done when I am at one of our other locations with fewer distractions), but that's part of being a global company. I have spent time in some of our other locations and frankly, I prefer the Sunnyvale location - the functional groups are less diverse (more engineering focused) so there is more commonality of interests and being a smaller group there is more of a family feel. Also they have free onsite parking and in SF we don't. For me, personally, the commute is a big drawback, and pubic transportation isn't easy from where I live. But I appreciate being able to schedule early/arrival and departure times to "beat the traffic"

Advice to Management

I think it is great that we are getting more focused. Please continue this trend, although it's crazy fun to have many many people working on new ideas and surfacing new concepts, and it's hard to say "no" to great ideas, it's hard to support everything from a resources perspective and I think this has held us back in the past. Also, great additions of Sameer and Jason to estaff, and I've seen more cohesion from the existing estaff since the new guys joined. Please continue this trend.

* Building hardware and software experiences: Unique opportunity to work with hardware / firmware / software / platform engineers to push bounders on every end of the stack. * Constantly redefining the business (pro): Jawbone has the unique past of constantly pushing into new businesses. On the pro side, the company takes big swings to push the future. * Smart people: The company has many smart people that you enjoy working with and want to hang out with outside of work. * All of the "standard" high growth startup benefits: free lunch, subsidized parking, benefits, etc.

Cons

* Long decision times: In certain instances it has taken senior management too long to make a decision, leaving people to infer one. It's nice when the working team gets it right, sucks when we get it wrong. This has improved with Sameer's recent arrival but this change is still new so tbd. * Constantly redefining the business (con): Jawbone has the unique past of constantly pushing into new businesses. On the con side, it means we are sometimes churning too much while we redefine who we are. It can get frustrating when you don't realize its happening. * Challenges & the press: Every startup has challenges, the press seems to like talking about our's more than others. This impacts our ability to focus on building. Fortunately, it has not restricted management's transparency on the business and roadmap.

Advice to Management

Jawbone has a unique vision and opportunity. Management should plot a clear course for how we get there, continue hiring great people, get rid of the negative people, and deliver for our customers.

- The wearable/data/IoT space is certainly a growth market. With any new market, there is a lot to learn and it comes with a certain amount of expected failures. However, the excitement that comes with this is stimulating and compelling. - Great benefits all around. Free lunch, free products, etc; - Incredible array of phenomenally intelligent people who are the known as some of the best in their fields. All of these people are very accessible for any employee.

Cons

- Many mistakes over the past 3 years with hardware failures and missed launches. Much of this came from not understanding the manufacturing process or overreaching on design principals. Many of these mistakes were made over and over again; new leadership on the Finance and Product side has brought a more common sense approach to the product roadmap.

Advice to Management

Continue to streamline decision making and require detailed objectives for those pitching new products or features. Do not announce products until we know they are ready for the market; then, get busy marketing them.

No communication - People have no idea what the company is doing outside of their own team, largely due to management saying that everything is "fine/great" when asked by VPs how things are going. With this happening, CEO is constantly painting an unrealistic view of the company and never sees/ cares about the hard work EVERY team does.

Advice to Management

VP's really need to be more hands on and dive into each team to understand what is really going on rather than having an ego stroking monthly team meeting. It's important to acknowledge failures so you can learn and move past them.

We were asked by our management via email to file favorable glassdoor reviews because our HR is having a hard time recruiting people. The fact that they think it is solely glassdoor reviews and not the constant bad reviews in the App Store, the bad reviews of our product in the news, the constant suing of our successful (and profitable) rival FitBit or the fact we just got debt funding because we are broke clearly shows the disconnect of management.

* Smart, motivated people * Great perks * Great products and software that employees can be proud of * Beers on the Roof!

Cons

* Bad managers churn through talent, especially in Engineering and design, turnover is over 100% a year * Upper management unwilling to make tough decisions on which projects to cut / or augment. Most projects are in perpetual, half-staffed limbo. Top talent leaves because they aren't being allowed to perform to their potential. Mediocre talent sticks around. * Best efforts of Engineers, Data Scientists, Designers, Project Managers wasted on great products that flop because of negligent marketing department. * Company refuses to fire executives that repeatedly fail

Advice to Management

Don't make people managers that don't have managerial skills. When managers don't perform (by hiring good talent, retaining them and allowing them to perform at their potential) let them go.

- Free lunch, snacks and beers every once in a while - Work with plenty of smart people - If you're great at re-building broken businesses then this would be your ideal place to work

Cons

- Really bad people managers and executive leadership. They keep trying to fix these things but can't seem to get anything right. - So many worthless meetings for you to spend your entire day in with little or no agenda. - Very high turnover. Projects keep starting and stopping because of it.

Advice to Management

Get rid of Hosain - he's poison to the company. Start listening to your employees if you're interested at all in fixing the company.